


Reflections

by vaguely_concerned



Series: Scoundrels and Thieves 'verse [33]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 18:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21433099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguely_concerned/pseuds/vaguely_concerned
Summary: “I may have chosen an injudicious time in my life to turn to philosophy,” Hanzo admits eventually. “It is the sport of a man far younger or far wiser.”
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Series: Scoundrels and Thieves 'verse [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/523720
Comments: 17
Kudos: 89





	Reflections

The city night unfolds before him with all the glittering, indifferent brilliance of the contents of a jewelry box spilled by an interrupted thief, blurring the borders of where electricity ends and stars begin. Hanzo stands by the hotel room window and gazes out at it all, his head heavy with the abraded silence that sometimes follows when conscious thought finally exhausts itself.

He realizes, as he hears first a quizzical noise from beyond the bedroom door half-open behind him and then soon after the rustle of sheets being pushed aside, that he has been standing there for longer than he had meant to. The sound of bare feet on the floor followed by the creak of the door being pushed all the way open brings him back to himself, away from the unfamiliar paths his mind is trying to navigate.

His leg has been going numb on him while he was lost in thought, and he shifts his weight and winces minutely as the blood flows back — he sees Jesse first as a reflection in the window and then in person when he turns his head to greet him, fondness blooming in his chest at the sleep-ruffled hair and the stretch of long lanky legs revealed beneath the t-shirt and underwear.

“I thought you were sleeping,” Hanzo says, keeping his voice low, as if to avoid waking a child in the next room, for reasons he cannot quite elucidate even to himself. He does not want to disturb the image of Jesse standing in the doorway.

Leaning against the doorframe Jesse goodnaturedly stifles a yawn with the back of his hand and squints at him, voice similarly hushed. “And I thought you said you were gonna be right behind me three hours ago. You gettin’ some late night brooding in?”

Hanzo gives a breath of laughter, leans his temple against the window sill. “Perhaps. It is hard to be certain; I sometimes feel as if I am the last person to be informed of whatever my mind is up to.”

With an answering laugh Jesse pads across the floor to stand behind him, hand coming to rest on his shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yes.” Hanzo reaches out to hook his fingers into the hem of Jesse’s t-shirt, idly rubbing over the soft-worn fabric with his thumb. “Three hours? I had not realized it had been that long.”

He turns back to the window, where Jesse’s reflection overlays the cold twinkle of city lights, tousled and sweet and familiar as the light from the lamp in the corner outlines his brown hair with gold, his head tilted in mildly amused puzzlement and carefully downplayed worry.

“I may have chosen an injudicious time in my life to turn to philosophy,” Hanzo admits eventually. “It is the sport of a man far younger or far wiser.”

Amusement soothes and overtakes worry; Jesse crooks a smile, rests his chin on Hanzo’s shoulder as his hand caresses a slow path down his side to his hip. “Huh. Ain’t universal truths a pretty tall order for the time of night when you’d be lucky to find decent takeout?”

Hanzo gives a rueful sound and runs a hand through his hair, smoothing it down. “As I said. I should have started younger or given some thought to becoming wiser. Too late now. Ah well.” Savoring Jesse’s chuckle he adds: “I would blame Genji for this development, but I suspect he would take it as a compliment, or worse, encouragement.”

By nature and practice Hanzo is ultimately unimaginative — a practical man with few big ideas and even fewer impulses towards originality. He knows this about himself, even when he tries to swathe it in tradition and sophistication to disguise it, dress it up as something else. Hanzo was hammered into shape with all the detached care and precision of a workman creating his own tools, crudely fashioned for effectiveness and reliability and ability to hold an edge with minimal need for maintenance. For most of his life he has done his best to _not_ think too deeply; at first because it had seemed… unsustainable, perhaps, in the long run, especially after he had felt hot blood flow over his hands and blessedly felt nothing in particular at all about it, and then for many years because the truth had been too terrible to look directly at — and now because he never learned how. Like most things fashioned solely for sharpness, he proved inflexible and brittle when tested for any other use, and he broke.

And yet his brother, always made of some different metal or perhaps shaped by kinder hands for some less prosaic reasons, who has found his own answers or found happiness in not knowing, it is hard to tell — Genji knows exactly what questions to pose to bring Hanzo up short, cheerfully exploiting his fault lines with both more kindness and more cruelty than Hanzo feels he could ever rightfully deserve.

It is enough to have a practical man pondering forgiveness and the honor held in the mending of broken things while the rest of the world is sensibly asleep.

“If either of us were wise men we’d have to stop most of what we’re doin’ at any given time,” points out Jesse, whose peculiar sense of righteousness and justice has always been unshakable while his existential ideology remains mostly nonchalance.

“Very true,” Hanzo has to concede. “Resolving to change anything for the better still seems like an unending chain of interlocking fool’s errands most days.”

Hanzo watches their faces nestled close in the reflection, Jesse’s eyes warm and undemanding on his, the crow’s feet bracketing them, and understands why some men might turn to poetry just to be able to _speak_, to say something true. _I kept you safely hidden in my heart for so many years like a dream that one day spring would come._ He might be only starting to realize how desperately little he really does understand, about the world and about himself, but then he is also rediscovering these old truths he had hidden even from himself, _especially_ from himself — like tender saplings sheltered from winter with his own body where necessary. Through the ruin and in defiance of distance, even after he’d watched Jesse walk away and back into the desert, the part of him whose duty it is to remember the things that keep him alive had faithfully stood its guard. 

Since it _is _three in the morning and Jesse needs at least a minute’s warning to handle that kind of sincerity at the best of times, Hanzo only half-turns and touches Jesse’s jaw with his fingertips to guide his face until their foreheads rest together, their noses brushing when Jesse nuzzles into it. 

With half-lidded smile-creased eyes Jesse says: “You ask me, we fools have way more fun.”

Smiling crookedly back Hanzo says: “Fun? I have been reliably informed that is another area where my expertise is limited. Perhaps this old dog will have more luck learning that trick than he did wisdom.”

“You’re plenty fun already,” Jesse states, with drowsy earnestness. “People just ain’t got no appreciation for gallows humor anymore. That’s on them.”

Hanzo touches the corner of Jesse’s mouth with his thumb, old uncertainty stirring inside him, making him feel young and rigid-spined and fumbling. “…how do you always make me seem so much better than I am.”

Shrugging Jesse says: “I’ve just got good eyes. Always did.”

Quelling his first impulse to protest Hanzo instead closes his eyes and bumps his nose against Jesse’s, staying with the affection and certainty in Jesse’s voice even as it feels like pins and needles through his whole body. It still takes effort, turning away from the well-trodden path of self-loathing and letting it grow over while he seeks out other roads, but it’s easier when he remembers who he’s walking towards.

Jesse’s fingers come up to rest against the back of his neck, gently stroking through his hair in a way that makes Hanzo’s shoulders let go of some of the tension.

The discomfort finally fades and Hanzo lets out a long breath and wraps his arms around Jesse’s waist, pulling him into a hug — Jesse squeezes him back and cups the back of his head with his hand, rocking on his feet in a slightly clumsy way that reminds Hanzo he only recently stumbled out of bed.

“…I’m sorry,” Hanzo sighs eventually, leaning back enough to look at Jesse’s face. “Sorry, here I am keeping you up with my nonsense. And not even in the fun way.” 

Jesse gives a startled snort of laughter. “You ain’t never given me a reason to regret a late night yet.” He studies Hanzo’s eyes, hand warm where it still rests on the nape of his neck. “This stuff really bothering you?”

Hanzo thinks about it, turning to the window with its distant electrical stars. “No,” he says, meaning it. “There is just… a lot to figure out. And time to do it in. I never knew a blessing and a curse could waltz into your life wearing the same damn face.”

Jesse chuckles and winds his arms around him from behind, his body bed-warm and mellow and welcoming; Hanzo sighs gratefully and lets himself melt back into him, tilting his head when Jesse makes one of his small, affectionate sounds and kisses his temple. Hanzo’s exhaustion changes texture under the touch, sternly held sharp edges finally allowed to soften and relax into loose-limbed sleepiness. 

“Come to bed. ’S three in the mornin’. Nothin’ makes sense at three in the mornin’,” Jesse rumbles, his left hand rubbing gentle circles over Hanzo’s stomach, the metal chill through the fabric of his shirt until it picks up some of his body heat.

“This does,” Hanzo says, untroubled by how much coherence he might or might not be bringing to bear, his eyes sliding closed and his head leaned back against Jesse’s shoulder, their cheeks resting together. “But I take your point.”

He doesn’t make to move. Contentment anchors him to the spot still: he wants to stay in this moment indefinitely, the world narrowed to only this, the safety and patience of skin to skin and the future promising nothing more demanding than a warm bed and soft voices and an arm resting snugly across his waist, perhaps some low laughter before they both drift off. It recalls some of the innocent ease of childhood sleep, the way he feels with Jesse next to him. It had been a strange experience indeed to find again something he had thought so definitively lost and forgotten within himself — another green shoot sheltered from snow. Some nights these days he finds himself dreaming, recklessly, of forests.

Eyes still closed he searches out Jesse’s right hand with his own and brings it to his mouth, pressing his lips to the back of it. Jesse hums happily and rubs his face against Hanzo’s neck like a sleepy kitten.

“This is real nice,” Jesse mumbles eventually, words leaning on each other on their way out in such a comfortably laidback manner that the result might be comprehensible to Hanzo only through long experience, “but if we don’t get horizontal real soon you’re gonna have to catch me when I nod off and carry me to bed.”

“I will if you want me to,” Hanzo reassures him absentmindedly, his own elocution gone languidly imprecise as he focuses on working up enough internal discipline to move away from the warmth of Jesse’s body for long enough to walk the necessary handful of steps to the bedroom.

“I know you could,” Jesse says, sounding drowsily giddy, “’s weirdly hot. Mmmm. Tomorrow, maybe.”

“Mhm. Tomorrow,” Hanzo agrees, and lets himself linger in the gentleness another few breaths.

**Author's Note:**

> My thought process was something like ‘Hanzo didn’t have a lot of space to Figure Things Out when he was young and the poor man has a lot of thinking to do now’? I think?? Writing is hard


End file.
